In 2016 I brainstormed ten frameworks for defining success because I couldn’t find a single one that covered everything. My general approach back then was that before making real moves for achieving your goals you have to make sure it’s something YOU want, and you’re not working on borrowed definition of success. I still believe that. And, for the record, the post only had 9 definitions, the last one was an open question.
Anyway, 10 years have added enough experience so I can go a little bit deeper down the rabbit hole, understanding what changed and in which direction.
The Actual Framework I Was Running
Looking back at 2016, the definition of success I was implicitly using was something like: growing the number of things one could produce, the platforms one operates on, and the income one could generate from them. It was based on expansion, on doing, having, being more. Progress as accumulation.
It wasn’t a bad framework per se. It produced real things, some of them really valuable. But it doesn’t have a natural stopping point, expansion as a continuous definition of success will always ask for more expansion. Eventually, any framework for success based on this becomes a framework for permanent dissatisfaction. You hit the target and the framework immediately generates a new one. That’s not success — that’s a rat race trap, with some nice polish on top.
What the Last Decade Added
Two things happened between 2016 and now that changed how I think about this.
The first was crypto. I was early enough in the ecosystem to watch what sudden, large wealth actually does to people — including myself — and one of the clearest things it does is reveal which definition of success you were really running. Money will always amplify what’s inside — it will never change you. So it makes it very clear if you’re after security, or validation, or social status.
The second thing was becoming a parent again at fifty-plus. That one forces a different way of thinking. I hinted at it in the original post. One of the 9 definitions is about having a “functional family”. But parenting and a new family after half a century is way more than a “functional family”. It’s a borderline miracle.
The Word “Enough”
The 2016 post uses the word “enough” only once. That’s a very interesting symptom. The nine frameworks are all expansion-oriented — they describe what success looks like when you have more of something, not what it looks like when you have what you need. Just enough.
“Enough” is harder to define than “more” because it requires you to actually know what you want — not what you’ve been told to want, not what you’d be embarrassed not to want, but what would make you genuinely feel like the day was well-spent. I wasn’t very well prepared on that front ten years ago.
My current working definition of enough: a day where I built something, moved my body, was present with someone I love, and didn’t spend more hours in reactive mode than in intentional mode. That’s it. Most days I hit three of the four. Some days all four. That’s what I’d call success now — not as a final destination, but as a daily fluid motion through all four.
Which of the Ten Held Up
Of the original ten definitions, the ones that have stayed useful are the ones that were already process-oriented rather than outcome-oriented. The frameworks that said success looks like doing the work well, regardless of what the work produces — those have survived and even compounded.
The definitions that pointed at external details — recognition, income level, reach — have been more fragile, not because those things don’t matter, but because they’re too dependent on conditions you don’t control.
The one I’d add now that wasn’t in the original: success as alignment. Not to something in particular, but mostly like a life lived in flow. I don’t think this can be measured, but it can definitely be felt.
dragos@dragosroua.com (Dragos Roua)
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